Battery-operated and portable handheld devices that perform real-time Three-Dimensional (3D) imaging such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), cellular phones, and handheld electronic games have become enormously popular. Their popularity is fueled in part by the available network connectivity options. Wireless data services now enable a new generation of high-performance, low-power-consumption handheld devices to access network-centric applications and content anywhere, anytime. As a result, these handheld devices, in addition to having the capability to provide mobile phone services, are capable of supporting 2-way video, sharing pictures and video clips, providing a rich web experience, and more.
As mobile applications become richer and more complex, the ability to optimally process multimedia becomes a necessity on handheld devices such as PDAs and smart phones. Applications such as video mail, mapping services, reading PDF files, and 3D graphics-rich games all require high quality and performance graphics and multimedia capabilities. These capabilities enable new applications that benefit from rich images and system performance in ways that were previously unavailable to most handheld users. These portable handheld devices face the challenge of providing a compelling user experience while reducing overall system energy consumption and cost. Traditionally, portable handheld devices have lower-performance components than desktop Personal Computers (PCs) primarily because of the power limitations inherent in battery-operated handheld devices.
In general, the rendering of 3D objects can be extremely computation and power intensive and therefore is not conducive to battery-operated handheld devices. 3D objects and surfaces are approximated as connected polygons, usually triangles. Greater realism can be obtained by using a larger number of smaller triangles to approximate the object as well as by using texture maps to more accurately render the surface material features. The rendering of each triangle requires the execution of multiple complex calculations. As the number of triangles increases, the complexity and power consumption of the logic that performs these calculations also increases. 3D graphics applications continue to gain popularity as higher quality and performance applications emerge.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,473,089 entitled “Method and Apparatus For A Video Graphics Circuit Having Parallel Pixel Processing” (hereinafter the '089 patent) teaches a video graphics circuit for parallel processing of 3D graphics pixel information. The video graphics circuit of the '089 patent includes a set-up engine, an edge-walker circuit, a span-processing circuit, and a plurality of pixel-processing circuits. The plurality of pixel-processing circuits allows the parallel processing of pixel parameters. While the '089 patent may teach a video graphics circuit with improved performance, it does not address the issue of power conservation. As a result, the graphics circuit of the '089 patent is not suitable for use in battery-operated portable handheld devices where power conservation is a crucial consideration.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,222,550 entitled “Multiple Triangle Pixel-Pipelines With Span-Range Pixel Interlock For Processing Separate Non-Overlapping Triangles for Superscalar 3D Graphics Engine” (hereinafter the '550 patent) teaches a 3D graphics processor with parallel triangle pixel pipelines to allow entire triangles to be processed in parallel. Also, the triangle pixel pipeline can process adjacent pixels in the triangle at the same time. Like the '089 patent, the '550 patent teaches a video graphics circuit with improved performance, it does not address the issue of power conservation. As a result, the graphics circuit of the '550 patent is also not suitable for use in battery-operated portable handheld devices where power conservation is a crucial consideration.
Thus, a need exists for a high quality and high performance 3D graphics architecture suitable for portable handheld devices where power consumption is a crucial consideration.